Looking good Flat, that flow meter looks great there all lit up. Such an ingenious idea to put it in the loop and then to light it up.
Pretty good that your getting 1.4gpm flow with all that you got in this loop. Out of curiosity what kind of pressure are you reading in your loop from that pressure sensor?
I'm surprised you haven't gone the Farbwerk route unless you're looking for particular UV LEDs. Only problem I should note is the darn AC IP65 LEDs (5050) from sticking to the case. I ordered some strong double sided 3M tape, that should fix that issue when I flush her out in the coming months.
I do have a Fabwerk however I will be using some Darkside UV LED strips so no real requirement for all the fancy control features of the Fabwork. I will be controlling the UV strips via a cheap RF remote control dimmer device which you can purchase on eBay for around $10 or so.
Pressure sensor? I gather you are referring to the Aquacomputer sensor in the back of the case? This is actually a flowmeter as well... using that for feedback to the Aquaero main unit whereas the front flowmeter is just a visual feature.
I was thinking that was a pressure sensor as well as flow meter. I gathered the KI flow meter was for looks as well as visual aid, but I wasn't sure if the aquaero unit was also a pressure sensor, sometimes it's hard to read the description of their products.
They do actually make a pressure sensor designed to measure liquid levels within a reservoir - however in practice people have found them as being next to useless due to normal pressure fluctuations in the loop. So it becomes a bit of a useless accessory...
Installed some UV accent lighting.
Ended up using a cheap eBay RF remote dimmer for the 'Darkside' UV LED strips. Works really well and it remembers the last setting selected, so no fiddling required whenever I power up the rig - So its set and forget.
I really needed a dimmer as the LED strips were way too bright at 12v and I actually only want to end up with a very subtle glow from the tubing and to also have the ability to switch the lighting OFF.
Trying to photograph the UV effect was next to nigh on impossible. My DSLR would simply not reproduce the colours to anything even remotely close to what it looks like to the eye - So I quickly gave up on that idea.
My Samsung S5 was not too bad however its exposure dynamic range is very limited so excuse the blown highlights etc in the photos... Should give you guys a vague approximation of what it looks like - Just imagine that it actually looks 1000x better to the naked eye...
The led strips are the Darkside UV Rev4 which I purchased from Performance PC's.
They seem to be biased towards the shorter wavelength 'purple' end of the visible spectrum (as far as I can tell with my eyes) although no doubt they contain some 'blue' spectrum components as well.
The led strips are the Darkside UV Rev4 which I purchased from Performance PC's.
They seem to be biased towards the shorter wavelength 'purple' end of the visible spectrum (as far as I can tell with my eyes) although no doubt they contain some 'blue' spectrum components as well.
Total length of acrylic tubing runs in build - 2424mm - 16mm OD acrylic used throughout build
System coolant capacity - 4500mL [Coolant utilised - Tectaloy 60 Plus - Auto based glycol coolant]
Total number of Bitspower fittings utilised - 180....
Flow figures for system:
Max Flow with 2x D5's @ 100% is just a tad over 1.4 GPM (Actual achieved is 1.43 GPM) - Yes, even with the relatively large amount of 90 degree fittings and other snake & elbow fittings this build utilises, it still manages to achieve an optimal flow rate.
To tell you the truth - it did surprise me a little in that we all read (scary rumours..) of 90 degree fittings being somewhat restrictive on the forums and to avoid them like the plague - yet not many actually measure this effect.
This build goes some way in solidifying Martin's original (Martins Liquid Lab) findings on testing the impact of 90 degree fittings where he generally found only minimal impact on flow rates.
Off the top of my head, here are some of the (what I would consider) best features of this build:
* Aesthetics - Primarily a personal chopice of course but I specifically stuck to accurate vertical and horizontal tubing runs while utilising the less commonly seen larger sized 16mm acrylic tube. Combined with the 'larger' elbow style (Bitspower L-Block) fittings it results in a strong 'industrial' style/look which is primarily what I was aiming for.
* One design feature that is not immediately obvious (but caused some head scratching with regards to eventual cable routing, overall GPU length etc) is that I offset both reservoirs as far left as possible which results in the RHS reservoir still being fully visible through the window with side door closed.
* Case holds 3x 560 radiators all set to intake fresh cool filtered air - no radiators using pre-heated airflow as an intake. To me this was an important design criteria as many builds have rads which intake using preheated air from another rad affecting the rad's overall cooling efficiency.
* Single loop design - Total 3x 560 radiator cooling capacity shared across all water cooled components.
* Acrylic tubing run from GPUs is not run directly straight down through the midplate - This allows maximum flexibility for easy tubing re-arrangement of different video cards (differing coolant port positioning on blocks).
No need to re-drill or reposition pass-throughs through the midplate.
The midplate is the most difficult panel to remove (requires total case disassembly) so I decided early on that the tubing run out from the second GPU would not be through the midplate but offset and passed through the rear motherboard panel
* After modification (Bitspower Aquapipe addition), the Photon reservoirs IMO are now one of the best in class as far as bleeding and overall performance is concerned.
The fact that the inlet tube is on the bottom forcing air bubbles upwards working in conjunction with the internal deflection plate really isolates incoming air bubbles from the outlet. Also due to their parallel configuration, the whole air bleeding process is extremely short.
Now that the build is coming to a close I will capture some cooling performance stats and post them up at a later stage. However - so far, while overclocking and stress testing etc it has been awesome to have all that cooling reserve/capacity that the 3x 560 rads provide - while at the same time keeping the fans barely rotating @ 550rpm....
It really doesn't matter how many fittings you have as long as the pumping power and flow rate is there, thanks to Martin's studies of course. I keep my rig at a 1.0 GPM at most and idles down to 0.7 GPM when nothings going on through my Aquasuite curve.
'Catch 22' though - You need a strong enough pump(s) to build enough pressure to overcome whatever restriction is in place.... Overall flow rate is dependent on all those variables....
I'll be running probably similar to yourself ie. say 0.8 GPM for the majority of time and bumping it up a tad only if I'm benching/gaming etc.
I'm getting excellent water delta temps even with the fans running sub 800 RPM. For instance at the moment I'm running X264 to check stability @ 4.8GHz... My delta is only 1.7 C (Flow set to 0.8 GPM)....
Yeh - When you simply look at the actual build you wouldn't dream of anywhere close to a figure of 180... yet the spreadsheet I kept & updated as I placed the fittings in the rig does not lie....
It really doesn't matter how many fittings you have as long as the pumping power and flow rate is there, thanks to Martin's studies of course. I keep my rig at a 1.0 GPM at most and idles down to 0.7 GPM when nothings going on through my Aquasuite curve.
^^^^^ true...... and i havent even looked at martins studies
its called pipe friction, used when calculating friction caused in pipe, fittings etc, bore depth, standing water level and fittings over the distance you want to have a required discharge from, then added up it gives a reading which then decides what size pump is required to get that result, the same principle applies in computers with fittngs, pipes, and pump/s to suit, all it is is smaller capacities with pumps, fittngs and piping
So much complication... I leave Vario at 3 which yields over 1GPM... whisper silent. No reindeer games with flow rates, just set it and go. Sooooooooooooo past the tinkering-constantly-with-my-rig stage, LOL!
So much complication... I leave Vario at 3 which yields over 1GPM... whisper silent. No reindeer games with flow rates, just set it and go. Sooooooooooooo past the tinkering-constantly-with-my-rig stage, LOL!
I don't know why I'm about to say this but Earth, you should get a Aququero 6. You will be in heaven tinkering with it. Fan, pump curves, deltas, air, water temps, LEDs, etc..........I mean the list goes on and on haha.
So much complication... I leave Vario at 3 which yields over 1GPM... whisper silent. No reindeer games with flow rates, just set it and go. Sooooooooooooo past the tinkering-constantly-with-my-rig stage, LOL!
Really the only time flow rate adjustment is handy is when first bleeding. Handy if you can run the system flat out or dial it back to remove the odd stubborn air pocket etc.
A truly nice build Flat. I'm just glad to see someone else go parallel with their GPUs. I have found they don't require the same flow rate to stay cool as the CPU does and it aides in overall system flow rate not having them in series. Plus I think t makes the GPUs more stable and will get less sag from the GPUs over time, or so it might seem.
A truly nice build Flat. I'm just glad to see someone else go parallel with their GPUs. I have found they don't require the same flow rate to stay cool as the CPU does and it aides in overall system flow rate not having them in series. Plus I think t makes the GPUs more stable and will get less sag from the GPUs over time, or so it might seem.
Yes parallel is my preferred option as in my build I think it it looks better with having the two acrylic tubes connecting both cards - Not a huge fan of those large bridges either.
The setup is fairly solid as is however one other design feature that I added was in using the tubing run out of the second GPU as an additional physical support for both cards.
I purposely ran the tubing run right down to the mid-plate and into a T-Block 3-way connector. The T-Block is fitted with a stop plug and on the stop plug I simply stuck a small stick-on vinyl foot. This then presses up against the mid-plate and provides support for the GPU weight above.
It all results in a real solid setup.
Not the best photo below - but you get the idea...
That's a nice hidden feature. Granted the brackets plus the parallel GPUs create a solid fix, that added point adds even more structure to it. Very clever I have to say.
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